Tyner censure, Freeman’s reporting missed point
Dear Editor: Re “Tyner’s words were ‘disrespectful and hurtful,’ Dutchess County Executive Molinaro says,” July 18, 2017; The story lacked journalistic ethics and integrity. Perhaps reporter Patricia Doxsey should visit The Society of Professional Journalists’ website and review their Code of Ethics page.
Was Bob Balkind offended by Legislator Joel Tyner’s statement because of his religion or because he was being called out for not informing others about Molinaro’s closed-door plan with the mayor of Poughkeepsie to take over the city bus system and place it in the hands of one of the county executive’s corporate donors?
Would not the Jewish people have been grateful for German citizens standing up in protest in the aftermath of Kristallnacht? Certainly standing by and letting it happen didn’t stop far worse atrocities. It takes some tortured logic to turn Tyner’s statement into something anti-Semitic. It’s just the opposite. Tyner has no cause to apologize, and if he did, his detractors would have accused him of admitting to making a racist statement, which he did not.
The real reason for this manufactured controversy is Tyner follows the money, and corruption doesn’t like that and the pay-toplay politicians don’t like it.
Doxsey would serve her readers much better by comparing Molinaro’s donor list with the county’s contractor list.
Dave Heller, Rhinebeck
Editor’s response: Although the techniques regrettably employed by the letter writer are currently in vogue at the highest levels of government, neither his “whataboutism” nor his innuendo regarding journalistic standards obscures the essentials: Tyner uttered the phrase in question, was asked to apologize but declined to do so, and then was censured for the remark. That was the story and what we reported.
Specifically with regard to “whatabout” campaign donors, if pay-to-play connections were what were actually on Tyner’s mind, he did not articulate such despite numerous opportunities to do so during the reporting of our story. If anything is tortured, then, it is the writer’s suggestion that our reporting should not have missed the point that Tyner’s equating the making of county bus policy with fascism somehow was really about campaign donations.
We stand by our reporting as thorough, ethical and on point to the public issue of the censure of an elected representative for the remark he actually made.